Monochroma Hands-On Impressions

Monochroma Hands-On Impressions

Monochroma is a stylized puzzler developed by Nowhere Studios, a turkish game development studio. We recently reported on Monochroma when Nowhere Studios announced that, if funded, Monochroma would release on Wii U next year. Monochroma is pretty straight forward and has no voice acting but this puzzler should not be dismissed as just another puzzle game. There is a demo for Monochroma available at the game’s website and anyone with Windows, Mac, or Linux can give Monochroma a try for free! Who can resist free? We gave Monochroma a spin to see what it had to offer.

The first thing that players will notice when firing up Monochroma is the graphical style of the game. The unique graphics are dark and very eye catching. The effort put into the graphics for Monochroma are evident throughout the game and seemed to shine the most during the parts of the demo that had fire elements or areas where it is raining. Even though these examples stood out the most, there is not one portion of the demo that didn’t pop graphically.

The music and sounds in Monochroma are also very pleasant. There is no voice acting in Monochroma but that is hardly necessary for a puzzle game. The interesting part about Monochroma is that we found ourselves beginning to care about the characters even though there is not one word of dialogue.

Monochroma is in fact a pretty typical puzzle game but it features a unique gameplay mechanic. One of the brothers hurts himself very early on in the game. Throughout the various puzzles the injured boy is carried by his brother and can only be set down in areas of light and the injured brother can not be left behind. The puzzles are just the right level of difficult and use the environment in unique ways to allow players to progress. The puzzles also flow well from one to the next. Rather than feeling like separate stages, the puzzles flow together as one continuous side-scrolling level.

Monochroma is a unique puzzle title with a lot of potential. The puzzles can be a bit difficult at times so it may not be for young children but veteran puzzle game fans will find Monochroma to be a refreshing and engaging puzzle gaming experience. There are 10 days left for Monochroma on Kickstarter. Monochroma will release next year only if the funding goal of $80K is met on Kickstarter. Play the Monochroma demo, then go back Monochroma over at the Kickstarter.